1. Field of the Invention
Implementations of various technologies described herein generally relate to substrate processing.
2. Description of the Related Art
The following descriptions and examples do not constitute an admission as prior art by virtue of their inclusion within this section.
To achieve the desired performance enhancement for each successive generation of silicon integrated circuits (ICs), semiconductor manufacturing has become increasingly reliant on new materials and their integration into advanced process sequences. Unfortunately, typical semiconductor manufacturing equipment is not well suited for materials exploration and integration. Issues impacting the use of typical semiconductor manufacturing equipment include difficulty in changing process materials and chemicals rapidly, limited ability to integrate and sequence multiple materials or chemicals in a single reactor or process chamber, high equipment cost, large sample size (e.g. 300 mm wafers) and inflexible process/reactor configurations. To complement traditional manufacturing tools, a need has arisen for process equipment that facilitates fast testing of new materials and materials processing sequences over a wide range of process conditions.